Monday, April 19, 2010

JAMES JOYCE: THE CAT AND THE DEVIL

ON AUGUST 10, 1936, JAMES JOYCE started a letter to his grandson Stevie: "I sent you a little cat filled with sweets a few days ago but perhaps you do not know the story about the cat of Beaugency." So began what was to be Joyce's only known story written for children. First published in Letters of James Joyce (1957) edited by Stuart Gilbert, this letter to Stevie has been subsequently published as a picture book in English two separate times: in 1964 by Dodd, Mead & Company, illustrated by Richard Erdoes, and in 1981 by Schocken Books (from a 1978 French edition), illustrated by Roger Blachon.

From the inside flap of the 1964 edition: "This charming little fable was written by James Joyce in a letter to his grandson "Stevie." It is an incongruous but delicious mixture of Irish wit and French folklore that explains the magic overnight construction of an actual bridge across the Loire, a very old bridge over which any young reader who might doubt the tale may still walk or ride his bike this very day."

The story is a legend that has been applied to several bridges over the years. In this version, it is the people of Beaugency who need a bridge to be built over the Loire River.

The lord mayor of Beaugency makes a deal with the Devil. The Devil will build the much-needed bridge over the Loire River in one night on the condition that the first soul to cross the bridge will belong to the Devil. Upon completion of the bridge the next morning, the mayor sends a cat across the bridge into the Devil's arms, fulfilling his end of the bargain but foiling the Devil's plans for acquiring a human soul.

The devil, needless to say, is quite perturbed, but he retires like a gentleman.

Joyce tells the story in a straightforward grandfatherly tone, but can not resist, in the end, a bit of word play and self reference.

In a similar moment of playfulness, Richard Erdoes made his own visual addition to the scene of the completed bridge. Is that Madeline and her class on the bridge?

In 2005, a Croatian edition of Joyce's book came out, illustrated by Tomislav Torjanac (see below). For more images from that edition, visit Tomislav Torjanac's website here.

Coming April 2016

About Me

Ariel S. Winter is the author of the picture book One of a Kind (Aladdin) illustrated by David Hitch, and the novel The Twenty-Year Death (Hard Case Crime). His new novel Barren Cove (Atria/Emily Bestler Books) will be released in Spring 2016.